To Run a Little Faster

by John Gardner

  ‘Your next novel will be banned. I can see it all. The disgrace. The neighbours not speaking to us.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about my book. Golly, everything’s happening to me this week.’

  ‘Keep your fingers crossed.’

  All I wanted was to get back to London and put the whole thing in Guy’s lap. Serious thought on the final outcome could only lead to increased anxiety. The notebook was snug in my jacket pocket. Sufficient unto the day.

  The following afternoon we got down to Calais, making the crossing home over the grey choppy Channel, oblivious to discomfort as we stood side by side against the rail, watching Dover Castle grow larger as we approached.

  We came off the steamer, carried along in the crowd through the customs sheds, joining the snaking queue at the passport desk. Behind the uniformed control officer there stood a pair of broad shouldered men, wide-chested with their eyes clear as crystal. I paid little attention to them and was in fact saying something to Poppy as I handed over my passport. The look on her face altered slightly and turning I found one of the plainclothes men beside me.

  ‘Mr. Simon Darrell?’ he asked quietly.

  Poppy said something and the other man, who had closed in from behind, asked her if she was travelling with me. She told him in no uncertain terms that she was, and we were asked, quite courteously, to accompany them.

  I felt angry that they should take us now, just as we were within a few hours of London. I was also anxious for Poppy, for I doubted if she had ever had dealings with the police before. We had naturally discussed the possibility of apprehension and questioning, and had a story contrived which wouldn’t be too much of a strain on either of us. Yet I don’t think we ever believed we would have to use it.

  Poppy looked shaken, white and embarrassed as we walked between the two men. People from the boat stood and stared at us. A fat woman in a long fur coat said something derogatory to the elderly military man squiring her. He laughed in a kind of donkey bray.

  ‘Dope runners I shouldn’t wonder.’ A voice from another knot of people pausing in the moment of giving orders to a porter. The big men with us might just as well have worn uniforms, their bearing and build declared them transparently as policemen.

  ‘This way please,’ the first one gestured to a door set in the side of the customs shed, and we passed through into a bleak corridor. From the harbour came the long wail of a ship’s siren, and through the babble in the hall came the voice of some drunk who had spent the crossing in the bar. He sang in a mocking, slurred voice to the tune of ‘My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean’.

  My mother she works in a brothel,

  My father makes counterfeit gin,

  My brother sells dope on the corner,

  My God how the money rolls in.

  I glanced back. Behind the second police officer, a uniformed customs man was carrying our baggage. Half way down the passage the first detective stopped at a plain wooden door and knocked. A muffled voice called from inside and we were ushered across the threshold.

  ‘Mr. Darrell and Miss Cooke,’ announced our guide.

  ‘Well, well, look who’s turned up. Life is full of coincidences, isn’t it?’

  Superintendent Fox leaned against a bare wooden table; a uniformed policewoman, all muscle and upholstered breasts, stood by the window.

  Somewhere behind us I could hear our luggage being brought in.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ There was not much cockiness in my voice.

  ‘About?’ Fox’s eyes looked dead. No opinions either way.

  ‘Are we under arrest? If so, for what?’

  ‘Arrest? Nobody said anything about arrest. Do you think you should be arrested, Darrell?’

  ‘I just want to know where we stand; what it’s about.’

  Fox straightened his shoulders and became official, the tone of his voice drab and grim with routine. ‘We are making enquiries into the murder of Oscar John Miller. You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘I’ve read the papers.’

  ‘Good. We’re here to question anybody who was in Switzerland at the time. You wouldn’t deny that you were both there?’ He threw the passports on to the table. ‘The stamps are clear enough.’

  ‘We spent less than a day in Basle.’

  ‘A short holiday, Darrell? Or some funny business? Would you mind if we took the lady to another room?’

  Poppy started to object but I shook my head. There was no point in being difficult just for the sake of it. Rights should be used with common sense, particularly when those in authority might not be trusted. Poppy did not argue, and one of the pair who had brought us in took her away, the policewoman following like a well-trained bitch. They asked her to identify her luggage, and this was moved from the room.

  Fox remained standing until the footsteps of the party ceased to echo up the corridor, then he looked at the plainclothes man who remained, and nodded him out of the door. ‘I’ll call when we need you.’ He walked around the table and sat down, picking up the passports, one at a time, turning them over in his hands with care. He looked like an expert examining some small antiques, trying to decide if they were forgeries. When he spoke he chose the words carefully, each sentence underlined with suspicion.

  ‘You’ve known Miss Cooke for a long time?’

  ‘For several years. She was a friend of my wife.’

  His eyebrows rose. ‘Your wife? I didn’t know you were married, Darrell.’

  ‘I’m not any more. We’re divorced.’

  His nose wrinkled. It was plain that Mr. Fox had some moral scruples. ‘Miss Cooke was the other woman?’

  ‘There was no other woman, Mr. Fox. It was another man. I divorced my wife.’

  ‘I see. And what have you been doing together in France and Switzerland?’

  ‘Miss Cooke’s mother lives in Paris …’

  ‘She’s French?’

  ‘No. We visited her in Paris.’

  ‘And then went on to Basle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  I told him the story we had agreed. Poppy was an authoress. She was writing a book in which a character had to travel from London to &isle. She wanted to do the journey for the experience.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve read any of Miss Cooke’s work. Does she write under her own name?’

  ‘Yes. Her first novel is not yet published.’

  ‘Oh,’ he laughed. ‘Not quite the enfant terrible of English letters yet then?’

  ‘It is to be published. She’s now working on another.’

  ‘And you’re helping her?’

  ‘We may well be getting married.’

  He nodded, a brief smile crossing his lips. ‘You’ve stayed out of the Hensman business haven’t you Darrell? You’ve been a good boy.’

  ‘You must know I have. It’s pretty dormant, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’ Rhetorical and hostile as a blizzard. ‘But you had a special interest in the Mayfair bank job, didn’t you? I remember we spoke briefly of it when last we met. I read a piece of yours.’

  ‘You were not complimentary.’

  ‘No. Hardly. You knew about Miller though.’

  ‘I knew you wanted him.’

  ‘You knew he was in Basle?’ He tossed the question out like a man asking somebody if it was raining.

  ‘Was he? I thought the papers said he died near Lucerne.’

  ‘He was in Basle until the day before yesterday — the day he died. The day you were in Basle. He had a visitor sometime during the afternoon of that day. A lady. Can you account for Miss Cooke’s movements on that afternoon?’

  It was impossible to tell whether or not he was bluffing, whether he knew about Jane Patterson or myself. ‘I spent nearly all the time with her,’ I said.

  ‘I see. You go anywhere near the Dufourstrasse?’ Wearily, a man tired of asking questions to which he knew the answers already. It was the technique of a hated schoolmaster, and the first provincial editor I had wor
ked under. I knew the method and the counter moves to it; I had known them for many years.

  ‘The Dufourstrasse? Don’t think I ...’

  ‘Runs along one side of the Kunstmuseum, and don’t tell me you’re not familiar with the Kunstmuseum, Darrell. When I last checked on you, when you got cheeky down in Cornwall, I was led to understand that you had spent some time travelling in Europe — apart from your Spanish adventure, of course — and that you enjoyed art.’

  ‘I know the Kunstmuseum. I don’t recall the name of that street though. I’m not an expert on Basle. I went along for the ride with Miss Cooke. She was interested in the journey more than the arrival.’

  ‘And you didn’t visit number forty-three Dufourstrasse the day before yesterday?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And, to the best of your knowledge, Miss Cooke did not visit number forty-three Dufourstrasse on that day either?’

  ‘Miss Cooke went nowhere near the Kunstmuseum.’

  ‘You would swear to that if necessary?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He stood up suddenly. ‘You have no objection to having your baggage searched?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Customs and Excise could have done it out in the hall if they’d wanted. There was no point in resisting it privately.

  ‘And a personal search?’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  He strode over to the door and called in the other policeman. A customs man had also appeared.

  ‘Your baggage was not searched outside, was it, sir?’ The customs officer was cheerily efficient, enjoying the importance of his role now there was some police action to give it more emphasis.

  ‘No, I have nothing to declare.’

  ‘Let’s see then shall we sir? Is the case locked? No, well.’

  It was all straightforward. He even tapped the sides and bottom as though looking for some hidden partition. ‘What are you looking for?’ I asked Fox.

  ‘I shall know when I find it.’ He sounded very certain that he would. ‘Turn out your pockets on to the table.’

  I particularly watched him as I dropped the notebook on to the wood.

  The look in his eyes was unmistakable, fleeting but there, and the quick movement of his hand as he reached out for it. Then everything seemed to slow down as he restrained himself. He turned it over in his hands, just as he had done with the passports.

  ‘And where did you get this?’ The smile flickered for a moment.

  ‘That one?’ Puckering my brows. ‘Oh, either Woolworths, or that little stationery shop near Chancery Lane. That’s where I get the refills anyway.’

  He was leafing through the pages, his fingers moving faster and faster as he found nothing.

  ‘It’s empty,’ he said at last.

  ‘I only carry it in case I really need to make notes. It’s not like the pictures, you know. Journalists don’t carry notebooks around with them. They have good memories. Did you see that Edgar Wallace film The Squeaker? The reporter in that gets asked for his notebook, and he says, “I don’t carry one. Only gas inspectors carry notebooks.” It’s a good Fleet Street story. When he did the play Wallace used to tell people the line was striking a blow for his former profession. Do police superintendents carry notebooks?’

  Fox turned away. ‘Go through every stitch of his clothing. I’ll see to the girl.’ He was away striding down the corridor, his footsteps clumping a reflection of his anger.

  They took an hour to go through everything, feeling in linings and shoulder padding. I hoped that Poppy was not having too bad a time of it. More, I prayed that she would remain calm and not slip under Fox’s questions. They pronounced me clean when Fox returned.

  ‘All right,’ he said curtly. ‘You can go. Miss Cooke will be ready in a minute or two. They’ll bring her down.’ Then, as if changing his mind, he started to ask me about the itinerary of our journey, the train out; the boat; train to Paris; everything. It was safe ground, and I presumed that Poppy had been blessed with sense enough to tell the truth.

  He appeared to be satisfied. ‘All right, Darrell. I’m sorry you’ve been troubled with this.’ He didn’t sound it, nor did the look on his face make me comfortable.

  ‘I’m a journalist, Mr. Fox. What are you looking for? There’s a story in it for me.’ Two could play at double bluff.

  He shook his head rather sadly. ‘There’s no story. Just routine. Checking on names and faces. People who were in Switzerland. Odd that you should have chosen that day to be in Basle though. With nothing much to do.’

  The hot and blighted classroom summer of my last year at school came back, unbidden.

  A ‘strange coincidence’, to use a phrase,

  By which such things are settled nowadays.

  He raised his eyebrows again. A quizzical look.

  ‘I think it’s Byron,’ I grinned. ‘I had to write it out five hundred times for some misdemeanour.’

  ‘Always in trouble, eh, Darrell?’

  ‘I didn’t know I was in trouble now.’

  He seemed to be trying to formulate a sentence, or find some missing piece in the jigsaw of enquiries in his indexed brain. ‘Maybe you’re not, Darrell, but I wouldn’t like to put money on it.’

  I was at the door when he asked suddenly, ‘When did you last see Jane Patterson?’

  ‘Jane ...?’ A fumbled catch.

  ‘I didn’t fall off the Christmas tree. Jane Patterson, secretary to our elusive Member for Crayshott East.’

  ‘In a room with you, at The Falcon Hotel, Bude,’ I answered positively, sure of my lie.

  He was fiddling in his mouth with his tongue, as though a piece of chewed meat had lodged somewhere in his dentures. A man like Fox had to have dentures. ‘Funny,’ he slurred the word then righted his tongue. ‘Funny. According to the information I have here, she was on the same boat train as you and Miss Cooke. Funny you didn’t notice her.’

  ‘There were a lot of people on the boat train.’

  So they were on to Miss Patterson. Just as they were on to the notebook. Were they also on to the names it had contained, and the amounts of money? If so, were they aware of what it was all about or was it some great cover up?

  Poppy came down the corridor with the policewoman, behind her the other detective carried her luggage. I could not read her face or even guess at what had gone on, though it must have been all right. After all they were letting us go back to London and the lights. They took us out of a side entrance and up to the platform of Dover Marine. Another boat was just in, and the first tired travellers were being petted into their compartments, or lugged their own bags like extra limbs along past the first-class coaches to the second and third.

  The plainclothes man had obviously been given orders, for he spoke for a moment or two with the guard and one of the first-class attendants, then came back to us.

  ‘The Super says you’re to go first to London.’ He didn’t sound like a man who agreed with his superior. ‘Make up for any inconvenience.’

  The attendant helped us in, saw to our luggage and asked if we would like dinner or drinks. I ordered gin and ‘It’ for Poppy and a large whisky for myself, and said we would take dinner. He told us there would be seats for us in the dining car as soon as we left. As he was talking, a tall young man came in and asked if any of the seats were vacant. He was put into the corner of our carriage, and booked a table for dinner. He hadn’t been with Fox, but I would have sworn he was a policeman.

  Poppy took the hint as I whispered that walls have ears. She glanced over at our travelling companion and nodded coldly back to me, her face pinched and strained. I wondered if she was regretting having bumped into me again. As though in answer to my silent questioning, her hand reached out and became enveloped in mine.

  ‘I wonder if they’ll catch him,’ she said loud enough for, the young man to hear. She was getting the idea, and had come far since that abortive conversation over breakfast in Basle.

  ‘I expect so. They usually do. It�
��s probably a case of thieves falling out.’

  On the platform a newsboy was shouting, ‘London Star — Standard — France says she’ll fight for Czechs.’

  The young man, eased into his corner seat, shifted slightly as though nervous of the newsboy’s yell — or his message. He moved his head, sweeping black eyes over the pair of us, and giving a little smile as though to reassure himself. The whistles blew on the platform, and the engine gave its answering call. Suddenly it seemed to have been a very long time since we set out from Victoria. Three — four days. I closed my eyes, wondering what the next few days would bring. Poppy jogged me and said we should be going to the dining car.

  At Victoria we waited some fifteen minutes for a taxi and argued about the next move. I had to get down to the Street and talk to Guy, while Poppy didn’t want to go off to the Marylebone fiat by herself. We had already decided there was no point in her moving in with Tessa again: she needed sleep, and dark circles were forming below her eyes like shaded areas on a map. Uncharacteristically, she hadn’t eaten much on the train. In the end she won, and we made the journey down through the Strand, the pavements damp with light rain and peopled by hurrying figures with their collars turned up against the night air.

  The Street was busy; you could almost feel the activity in the offices and the throb of presses in the lanes and squares which lay beyond, spelling out the nation’s news for consumption at every breakfast table, to be swallowed whole with Force and Oxford marmalade. We left our luggage with the porters in the foyer, and I took Poppy up through the general office to Guy. He didn’t look over pleased to see me, and glared at Poppy as though she had recently arrived from a hostile planet; but he motioned us into chairs and one of his secretaries — the thin one with no bust — offered us coffee.

  It was the time of night when newspaper offices are most alive, just prior to the first edition, and the headaches start to come in earnest. As soon as there was a lull, Guy closed the door and looked pointedly at Poppy.

  ‘She’s been with me,’ I started to explain. ‘Poppy Cooke, Guy Underwood.’

  ‘Can she stand bad language?’ He nodded at her, rudely.

  ‘She’s a novelist.’